Credit: Playboy/Tony Kelly
Famed journalist, Ethan Brown, the man behind the controversial Queens Reigns Supreme: Fat Cat, 50 Cent, and the Rise of the Hip Hop Hustler, ventured to Chicago at the end of 2013 to cover the Chi’s rising hip-hop scene for Playboy Magazine. The piece went live online today, and will be featured in next month’s issue. The piece mainly focuses on drill and the controversy surrounding it, but also highlights Chance The Rapper and Treated Crew. Click here to read the entire piece.
The ascendance of Chicago’s hottest young star began in 2011 with a series of YouTube videos featuring Keef, skinny with a mischievous grin and half-lidded eyes hidden behind a sprout of twisted dreads. Pounding tracks such as “I Don’t Like” and “3Hunna” were produced by Young Chop, who at the age of 11 used a suite of pirated production software to birth the sound that would define his city: icy piano melodies, overblown bass drums and thwacking hi-hats, punctuated by screams and gunshots imbued with danger and ready-to-jump energy. His approach launched half a dozen young stars and invented the Chicago sound now nicknamed Drill. And the stocky, dread-headed teen did it from his mother’s South Side house, where, he claims, it took 20 to 30 minutes to produce “3Hunna.”